Mine Eyes
by Nevrmore
Summary: A man's quest for redemption falls on deaf ears.


I have done terrible things.

A life is something that should be treasured. That should be precious and protected and loved, to be grown with all the care in the world into fruition, not in the interests of harvest, but just in the fact that it's there, the merit of its sheer existence. A life is a supernatural perfection, the aspirations of a god that the other gods shunned as being too crazy to think that way. A life is beautiful. Every man should know this...Every man should respect this.

There are times, however, times when a man forgets this simple fact. There are times when the curtains of sin cover a man's eyes, when a fog of avarice and greed and lust and envy condenses around their head and they are left to stumble through it, doing everything they can to make it out alive, assuming that everyone else is doing the same. And to a certain extent, this is true for all men, and it is a necessary evil, I suppose...But those are not the times when that fog is manifesting itself from the barrel of a smoking gun.

I have done despicable things.

If I could go back in time and take it all away, I would. And if I couldn't do that, I would still try. An affront to God is not a sin...It is just a confrontation. It is you telling God, you know you're doing wrong, but it has to be done. You have the power to do something, and you must do it. And if God doesn't allow that...then you are praying to the wrong God.

I have done horrible things.

Things that can't be undone. Blood that can't be unspilled. Wounds that can't be uncut. There is something to be said for the man who sits down and can feel the grip of his gun grinding into his palm and has to look and make sure if it's really there or not. And when he realizes it's not, he has to cry. There is no worse feeling in the world than waking up in the middle of the night and having to shake your wife awake under the delusional belief that the demons of vengeance have come and taken her in your stead.

I want to believe it's all over. I have told my friends and myself that I will never go back to that life. I tell them that I'm going to be making something of myself, and I'm going to use what I have left to repair what I've done. And at first, at that moment, I was foolish enough to believe in that fact. What I didn't realize at that time was that, once your leave your footprint in Hell, your tracks will never be covered. And once your kill an angel, the cherubs show their demonic side.

I have done malevolent things.

Malicious things.

Immoral things.  
Atrocious, disgusting, sinful, wicked, abhorrent things.

Why did I think that a St. Patrick's Day party would make up for it?

I sit in the lounge at the second floor, deigning not to go and join the frenzied, drunken idiots down there, having long since gained the ability to spit fire, slowly killing themselves but loving every moment of their drawn out deaths. The stomping of their feet in almost-unison shakes the foundations of the house. I have to clutch my book as if my hands were gargoyle claws to keep it steady enough to read. The last bass line of the song draws them all to jump at the same time and a blanket of plaster unhinges from the ceiling above me, caking the page I was reading. Sighing, I close the book and set it on the table beside me, standing.

It doesn't matter how much money I give to charity or how much time I spend trying to improve the world. The simple truth of it all is that, in the end, the drunk get drunker, the poor get poorer, and the dead stay dead. I head out of the lounge.

"Going for a walk, sir?" The man beside the door asks. The festiveness of his little leprechaun costume - green jacket, green face paint, a large novelty shamrock pinned to his lapel - is somewhat dampened by the sunglasses over his eyes and the earpiece spiraling out of his ear canal and into his breast pocket.

"I suppose so." I say. I didn't want to stay in there, but I didn't want to go mingle with those ingrate downstairs, either. But maybe seeing their stupid antics will make me feel better.

"Should I come with you?" He asks.

"No, no, just stay here. That'll be fine." The man who walked a thousand miles didn't have an armed guard with him to stave off the vultures, after all.

"Very well, sir. I'll radio you if anything happens."

"Thank you, Darryl." I nod and walk off down the hall. I feel as if the inexorably loud drumming of the bass below, amplified by God knows how many sound speakers, is trying to usurp the beating of my own heart and turn me into one of those dancing zombies that I am about to go socialize with. I give a nod and a falsely-enthusiastic wave to a few of the guards as I pass by them. I don't want them to think that their generous employer is feeling down. That is bad for morale, and it's not as if I have any to spare for them.

Making my way down the stairs, the music gets louder with each step. The approaching tyrannosaurus. It becomes so loud it's almost hard to breathe. I definitely should have braced myself for when I actually stepped into the room.

It looks so much bigger when it's jammed full of people. Men and women of every color and creed have gathered under the principle interest of getting completely shitfaced. They say that a woman president would achieve world peace by sitting down with foreign leaders and having a nice cup of coffee with them, but that's wrong. The real key ingredient to peace is lots and lots of booze.

Side-effects may include embarrassing dances, as shown here.

The multitude of people have blended together into one gesticulating, green, amorphous blob, with some parts of it discernible only because someone has decided to outshine the rest by wearing an especially glittery or bright green getup. But still, the best they could hope for is to look like some lone survivor of a horrible ship crash on the Green Sea, which I suppose would be the Red Sea's less popular little brother. In any case, the sea is thankfully contained enough within the confines of what they have designated as the dance floor that I can comfortably walk between them and the wall to get to the bar.

"Hey hey! It's the man of the hour!" The tender flashes a big smile in my direction as I walk up. Horatio was one of the most charismatic men I've ever met. That's why I hired him, after all.

"How is the party going?" I ask.

"What?" Horatio responds. How he can project his voice over the deafening music and I can't is a mystery, but it's a trait that I've seen him use before. It helps him look more suave.

"HOW IS THE PARTY GOING?" I repeat, much louder than a man my age should speak.

"Oh, great!" He responds. "We're racking up tons of money over here. You sure you want to give it all away to charity?" He laughs.

"NO PROBLEMS, THEN?" I ask.

"None that I can think of. Oh, you might want to look into that new guard you got. He seems really confused."

"NEW GUARD?" What was he talking about?

"Yeah, the new guy." Horatio responded, as if that instantly clarified everything for me. "He had to come over here and ask me where the stairs to the second floor were. I mean, what's that about?"

He must be talking about Andrew. Andrew was absolutely terrible with directions.

"I'LL TALK TO HIM ABOUT IT." I shout.

"Haha, it's no big deal. Want a drink?" He offers me a glass. I refuse.

"NO THANKS, I'M ABOUT TO GO BACK UPSTAIRS ANYWAY."  
"Alright. See you later then, Mr. Charity." Horatio winks.

I once again avoid the pack of drunkards that look less like they're dancing and more like they've somehow achieved the previously-thought impossible task of having a full-body seizure whilst standing and make a quick stop at the kitchen, wondering if my wife was still inside putting the finishing touches on the food she had been cooking earlier. She wasn't there, but I could see that her beautifully prepared ham was, sitting on top of the stove like a trophy. The realization that I was hungry hit me like a punch in the stomach. I wanted to go take a few slices, but to my chagrin the carving knife was missing from the knife set. That woman always misplaces things...

I was about to cut my losses and head back upstairs, but something caught my eye - The cooler. It was pushed away from the wall. I breathed heavily out my nose as I stared at one of my biggest pet peeves. Kneeling down so that I could place my shoulder against the cooler, I pushed against it to force it back against the wall.

"Nnnnnnnnnrrrrrgggh!" I grumbled as I pressed into it. Good Lord, was I just getting older or had this cooler gotten substantially heavier? I tried again, this time exerting all my force into it. With a high-pitched scrape, it crawled slowly, surely, until it kissed the wall again. I got up, the air forced out of my lungs, looking at the freezer. What had that woman packed into it? It felt like someone was hiding inside the damn thing! I went to open it up and see what was contributing the extra 200 pounds to it, but I was distracted by the sound of the door slamming against the wall.

"Heeeey, you're that guy!" A slurred voice called out. I turned around to see a shapely girl standing in the doorway, dressed as some strange cross between a leprechaun and a Playboy bunny.

"What are you doing? Get out of my kitchen!" I said to the drunken woman.

"Hold on, man, I jusht wanted to tell you that I reaaaaally admire what you're doing here, mishter." She said before she broke into a gigglefit. I sighed and walked over, turning her around and forcing her out of the kitchen.

"That's great, I really appreciate the sentiment." I said.

"Call me!" She shouted as she stumbled back into the Green Sea. I closed the door and turned back around. Dammit, I forgot what I was doing. Running my hands through my hair, I just decided to go back up to my lounge and away from these idiots.

As I turned the corner out of the dance floor, I saw one of my men standing at the staircase, looking out at the dancing mass, trying his best to look authoritative. I smiled coyly.

"Andrew, my boy, I see you've managed to find the stairs!" I smirked. Andrew looked at me.  
"Uh...Yeah, I did."

"You don't have to be embarrassed, son, we all have those brain farts every once in awhile." I laughed as I head up the stairs.

"I...guess so?" Andy said to my back. He was a nice boy, but always a little dim.

Walking back towards the lounge, I stopped as I notice that Darryl wasn't there. I held my breath for a second before I saw the bathroom door close down the hall. I think the poor boy has a bladder problem, he sure has been having to go to the toilet, lately. I shake my head and walk into the lounge, closing the door behind me.

I pick up the book that I had put down earlier from the table and look at it. On the Genealogy of Morality, Frederick Nietzsche. Nietzsche posits that morality is split into two categories, Master and Slave. A Master's morality is governed by good and bad consequences, while a Slave is good and evil intentions. And he's right, to an extent. Back then...Back when I was...What I was, I was a slave. My intentions were of the blackest kind, my consequences of no importance to me. That was when I was chained down by my own greed.

But now, am I a master? Have I gained control of my destiny? No...I don't think so. Just because now I have the ability to look back on what I did and mourn does not mean I have the ability to change anything. Even giving all my money away to charity doesn't feel good enough. I almost feel worse doing it, handing money rich in men's blood over to helpful organizations. It feels like murdering a man to steal his coat and keep your child warm. I would like to think I was starting to get better, but all the time I sit back and wonder if I've made any advances at all. And if I have, I wonder if anyone has noticed.

I set the book down just as I hear the door open behind me.

"Had to go on a bathroom break, Darryl..." I ask as I turn around. I feel my voice trail off as I look at a man who is most definitely not Darryl. He doesn't say a word, but that one moment when our faces meet speaks more than any conversation ever could. His ice-blue eyes probe my soul, deconstruct me completely and see me at my most prime level. I see myself reflected in those eyes, and I see also what he sees. He sees the truth and the lies and the disgusting children that I have created from them and in one blinking motion he destroys them utterly, leaving me like a newborn child, shuddering and cold. On the fringe of my consciousness, I can just barely hear the voices blazing in my ear.

Kzzht "Second floor, we've found a body, everyone on full alert!"  
"Jesus Christ, his throat's sliced clean open..."  
"Who could have done this?!" Kzzht

In the terse moments of silence, I am able to reflect on my past and present moralities. I am able to have a complex conversation with myself on who I am. I think of all the things I have in life, now. I think of my wife. I come to grips with all that I have done and all I have deserved, and everything I haven't. As the man raises up his right hand, I come upon a great epiphany like an explosion of fireworks inside my head.

And suddenly I'm looking up at the ceiling.

And suddenly I'm falling.

And suddenly my back is on the floor.

As everything fades to black, I figure that everything is okay. Mine eyes have seen the depths of Hell, but in that one moment, that silent opera that just occurred between us, they have spied the dancing cherubs of Heaven, as well.

The world disappears.


End file.
